Today while I was at work, one of my co-workers told me that after his wife had read some of the articles I had sent to his e-mail account, she made a comment along the lines that, “This guy is gonna get shot.” Throughout the remainder of the day that comment kept coming back to bother me. There have been times that I have wondered if my writings have brought me to the attention of my government, and that my name might be upon some sort of watch list. However, this is the first time that I had thought about whether or not someone besides my government might feel threatened by the things I write about.

Have we, as Americans, forgotten what it means to be free, to enjoy the kind of liberty that our founding documents speak of? Have we become so reliant upon, and addicted to, government programs and subsidies that the thought of being free scares the hell out of the average person? In my discussions with people I get the impression that they truly don’t understand liberty, or what it means to be free. The concept of freedom is so foreign to them that it probably does sound pretty radical, and dangerous.

People accept the erroneous belief that our rights are something that our government can revoke, or limit. In 1993, Bill Clinton stated, “If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government’s ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees.” That statement, to me, is more frightening than anything I think I have ever heard anyone ever say. Yet I bet most people, if they even noticed that he said it, would probably agree with him on the matter.

Former President Woodrow Wilson once said, “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”

In researching for this article I came across an un-sourced quote that aptly applies to the subject at hand, “Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves.”

As George Bernard Shaw said in 1905, ”Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” When a person is truly free, when they have true liberty, there are no government programs to take care of them, subsidize them, or rules to regulate them. They alone are responsible for their health, their welfare, and their survival. This nation, if it really was, as the song says, a sweet land of liberty, would not be filled with a people who so complacently accept law after law which infringes upon their unalienable rights.

People these days are so uneducated when it comes to the meaning of our founding documents that they are unable to grasp the significance of the term unalienable rights. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, Sixth Edition, unalienable means, “incapable of being alienated, that is, sold and transferred.” Your unalienable rights are rights which you CANNOT surrender, or have them taken from you.

On the other hand, people confuse unalienable with inalienable, and there is a huge difference between the two. Inalienable rights are those which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights, (Morrison v. State.)

Bouviers Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition states that the natural rights of life and liberty are UNALIENABLE. Therefore, we cannot surrender them, even voluntarily. Other than committing suicide, can you stop the blood from flowing in your veins? No, of course you can’t. Just as you cannot stop the flow of blood through your veins you cannot surrender an unalienable right.

The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights list certain of these unalienable rights. The preamble to the Bill of Rights clearly states, “THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.”

These rights exist just as the air that surrounds us exists. We may choose not to exercise them, but nonetheless they still exist and any freedom loving man, or woman, should be outraged at their government’s attempts to infringe upon them. Still, people go about their lives as if nothing is happening.

In 1956, H.L. Mencken wrote, “Most people want security in this world, not liberty.” As I said earlier, liberty entails a great deal of responsibility. Most people are only willing to accept a certain amount of responsibility, then they would rather have their government, or society in general accept the remainder of that responsibility.

In 1996 Hillary Clinton wrote a book in which she said, “It takes a village to raise a child.” The principle behind that statement is that society, not the individual, is responsible their actions and their welfare. That statement runs contrary to the concept of individual liberty, and if it had been made in 1776, most likely the person saying it would have been tarred and feathered. Yet today it is commonly accepted that society has the responsibility of caring for the needy, those incapable of providing for themselves.

Robert Heinlein once said, “I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” That, my friends is liberty, to accept complete responsibility for your own actions, for your own success, and ultimately for your own survival.

After thinking about this subject all day, I have come to the conclusion that it is that fear of responsibility which lies at the root of why people might feel threatened by the things I discuss in my articles. People are deathly afraid of the responsibility that freedom demands.

There is one thing that people need to consider, if you choose to surrender your rights, or sit idly by while they are taken from you, then you WILL END UP A SLAVE. In 1922 D.H. Lawrence wrote, “Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.”

You may not be willing to face the truth, nonetheless, that is the course that this nation is on. With each new law that our government passes, with each ruling handed down by a corrupt court system, your rights are being eroded. Eventually they will ALL be gone and you WILL be a slave.

People may be frightened of my radical talk of rights, of freedom, and of liberty. Your fear, however, is dwarfed by my anger and my disgust with people who don’t have the courage to stand up and fight for their rights.

As Ben Franklin once said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” If I may also take a little literary license, I would add the following, “Neither do they deserve the title of an American, nor the blessings that this country has to offer.”

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

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